Last night, after working on my ethics before bed, and with a premonition that I would be dreaming importantly, I had the following dream:

I was for some reason staying with my first boyfriend -- his apartment was a strange atticky thing. All I remember is that there had been a fire, and all of his stuff came out okay, but all of the books in my bookcase, specifically all of the creative writing notebooks I have ever produced, had burned. I couldn't understand how they'd burned while the bookcase wasn't even smoke damaged. I was furious. My notebooks are my most precious things. How could everything I'd ever written burn, when the bookcase was unharmed?

Now what does THAT mean, then, hmm?

Tomorrow is my birthday. I wonder if my shit is going to hit the fan -- birthdays are often really intense times. Then, on Friday, I teach non-trainees for the first time. I was supposed to be teaching second -- a ten-minute three-pose sequence -- but the trainee who was supposed to go first fell ill and won't be doing it. For the practice round today, I asked Ana if I should sub in, and she said yeah. At the end of practice I asked if the trainee was going to be coming back to teach, and Ana said to practice up just in case I had to present -- "because now we know that you can teach it fine even without practicing it" (thanks!). Now I'm going first, and teaching poses I've never studied and only practiced once so far, and I'm going to be up there for twenty minutes. Ujjayi breathing is hard to teach, and hard to cue for assistants. Part of me did it because I wanted the challenge, and want to push forward hard and really learn; part of me doesn't know why I managed to get myself into more work when what I had was already enough (this is maybe something I am known for doing... is it a good thing? Or am I irresponsibly overloading myself?)

For my birthday this year, I want to teach these poses without twisting my body into a squeaky anxious mass, which was the major criticism Ana had of me when giving feedback this afternoon: "trying so hard makes you stupider". Send me mellow vibes, and help me be relaxed, knowing I will make mistakes.

MM